Fossil Brainz

How much do we really know about the brains of ancient animals? In this episode we dive into the fantastic world of endocasts, aka, brain impressions!


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Soft tissue (eew), cursing, Nanotyrannus, brief mention of the Nazis in regards to Tilly Edinger

Images From the Episode

References

Edinger, T. (1948). Evolution of the horse brain (Vol. 25). Geological Society of America. 

Tilly Edinger Rolf Kohring (Author), Gerald Kreft (Author) (Book)

Edinger, T. (1921). Ueber Nothosaurus: II. Zur Gaumenfrage (Doctoral dissertation, Verlag nicht ermittelbar). 

Emily A. Buchholtz, Ernst-August Seyfarth, The Study of “Fossil Brains”: Tilly Edinger (1897–1967) and the Beginnings of Paleoneurology, BioScience, Volume 51, Issue 8, August 2001, Pages 674–682, https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0674:TSOFBT]2.0.CO;2

https://www.wowstem.org/post/tilly-edinger 

Kirk, E. C., Daghighi, P., Macrini, T. E., Bhullar, B. A. S., & Rowe, T. B. (2014). Cranial anatomy of the Duchesnean primate Rooneyia viejaensis: new insights from high resolution computed tomography. Journal of human evolution, 74, 82-95.

Kemp, A. D., & Christopher Kirk, E. (2014). Eye size and visual acuity influence vestibular anatomy in mammals. The Anatomical Record, 297(4), 781-790. 

Harrington, A. R., Silcox, M. T., Yapuncich, G. S., Boyer, D. M., & Bloch, J. I. (2016). First virtual endocasts of adapiform primates. Journal of Human Evolution, 99, 52-78.

Beaudet, A. (2017). The emergence of language in the hominin lineage: perspectives from fossil endocasts. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11, 427. 

Müller, Rodrigo Temp. "Olfactory acuity in early sauropodomorph dinosaurs." Historical Biology 34.2 (2022): 346-351.

Bronzati, Mario, et al. "Endocast of the Late Triassic (Carnian) dinosaur Saturnalia tupiniquim: implications for the evolution of brain tissue in Sauropodomorpha." Scientific reports 7.1 (2017): 11931.

Ballell, A., Benton, M. J., & Rayfield, E. J. (2022). Dental form and function in the early feeding diversification of dinosaurs. Science Advances, 8(50), eabq5201.

https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/eoraptor.html

Müller, Rodrigo T., and Maurício S. Garcia. "Rise of an empire: analyzing the high diversity of the earliest sauropodomorph dinosaurs through distinct hypotheses." Historical Biology 32.10 (2020): 1334-1339.

Bronzati, Mario, Rodrigo T. Müller, and Max C. Langer. "Skull remains of the dinosaur Saturnalia tupiniquim (Late Triassic, Brazil): With comments on the early evolution of sauropodomorph feeding behaviour." PloS one 14.9 (2019): e0221387.

Bronzati, Mario, et al. "Endocast of the Late Triassic (Carnian) dinosaur Saturnalia tupiniquim: implications for the evolution of brain tissue in Sauropodomorpha." Scientific reports 7.1 (2017): 11931.

Walsh, Stig A., et al. "Avian cerebellar floccular fossa size is not a proxy for flying ability in birds." PLoS One 8.6 (2013): e67176.

Ferreira-Cardoso, S., et al. "Floccular fossa size is not a reliable proxy of ecology and behaviour in vertebrates." Scientific Reports 7.1 (2017): 2005.

Early, Catherine M., et al. "Endocast structures are reliable proxies for the sizes of corresponding regions of the brain in extant birds." Journal of Anatomy 237.6 (2020): 1162-1176.

Hurlburt, G. R., Ridgely, R. C., & Witmer, L. M. (2013). Relative size of brain and cerebrum in tyrannosaurid dinosaurs: an analysis using brain-endocast quantitative relationships in extant alligators. Tyrannosaurid paleobiology, 1-21.

Proffitt, J. V., Clarke, J. A., & Scofield, R. P. (2016). Novel insights into early neuroanatomical evolution in penguins from the oldest described penguin brain endocast. Journal of anatomy, 229(2), 228-238.

Lauters, Pascaline, Martine Vercauteren, and Pascal Godefroit. "Endocasts of ornithopod dinosaurs: Comparative anatomy." Progress in Brain Research 275 (2023): 1-23.

Witmer, L. M., Chatterjee, S., Franzosa, J., & Rowe, T. (2003). Neuroanatomy of flying reptiles and implications for flight, posture and behaviour. Nature, 425(6961), 950-953.

https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com/posts/know-your-brain-vestibular-system

https://karger.com/ene/article/61/5/311/124627/Marie-Jean-Pierre-Flourens-1794-1867-and-Cortical

Brasier, Martin D., et al. "Remarkable preservation of brain tissues in an Early Cretaceous iguanodontian dinosaur." (2017).

The braincase of Malawisaurus dixeyi (Sauropoda: Titanosauria): A 3D reconstruction of the brain endocast and inner ear

Watanabe, A., Balanoff, A. M., Gignac, P. M., Gold, M. E. L., & Norell, M. A. (2021). Novel neuroanatomical integration and scaling define avian brain shape evolution and development. Elife, 10, e68809.

Balanoff, A. M., and G. S. Bever. "The role of endocasts in the study of brain evolution." Evolutionary neuroscience. Academic Press, 2020. 29-49.

Iurino, Dawid Adam, et al. "A lynx natural brain endocast from Ingarano (Southern Italy; Late Pleistocene). Taphonomic, Morphometric and Phylogenetic approaches." Hystrix 26.2 (2015): 110-117.